( Ashes, part 13 )

1) So that's Riam's secret -- I don't think it's as bad as he thinks it is, though he has cultural reasons for being hypersensitive, which will be revealed as I tell you more about the taint-house. I will tell you Zalir's secret later.

2) The long gap between updates? Partially due to lack of sleep, partially to the sudden presence of guests, and partially to getting halfway into this scene and suffering an attack of "oh god, my story is so stupid" insecurity... but mostly to computer troubles. *hates computer* I suspect it will fail again tomorrow, so goodness only knows when I will next get a chance to type up longhand sections and post them.

3) 1,150 words today, 17,700 total.

( Ashes, part 11 )

1) That would be the end of chapter one. \o/

2) I actually had this mostly written longhand as of Tuesday night -- I lost Sunday and Monday to continuing computer troubles and a recurrence of my on-again off-again cold -- but I couldn't get it typed and posted until tonight -- computer troubles again. Now I am off to write Morgalen's actual story and explanation, after which we move on to the next day, the proper introduction of the taint-house and Kivarunanga Gydra, and the plot gimmick that will force Riam and Zalir to join Morgalen's quest.

3) I am infodumping so badly in this section and the previous one. Sorry about that. I will smooth those passages out in December.

4) 900 words today, 14,750 total.

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On an unrelated note, my digestive system hates me today. I cordially hate it back. Ow, ow, ow, and ick. Fortunately, the troubles did not kick in until this afternoon, several hours after I returned home from my dentist appointment. That would have been awkward.

( Ashes, part 9 )

1) ...I would say something intelligent about this section, but I am tired and kind of brain-dead right now. Oh well. Or no, wait -- this would be the part where I remembered that they're not just talking while eating (which I did make a token gesture or two toward acknowledging in the previous section), but that they're in a big room with lots of other people potentially listening in. In December, I must go back and take that into account earlier in the scene.

2) Apparently, Morgalen's people are devotees of Sun Tzu. Who knew?

3) I think this may be the first time that I said anything about what magicians are -- and how they get their power -- on page. More on that later. Also, note that while everyone in Zerlon says Morgalen is bound to fire, she says she's bound to the principle of heat. Her version is more accurate, though still not necessarily correct.

This world doesn't have the disciplines that we would call physics, chemistry, and so on, but before the Gate and the miasma, they were making some progress along those lines, and magicians, in particular, have made some further advances in the next two centuries. In other words, they do know a bit about matter, energy, elements, and the idea of natural laws, though the fact that their data mostly comes from contact with other universes where natural laws work a bit differently -- manipulation of those differences being the entire point of the magician's art -- means their results are understandably inconsistent, and also often kept secret.

4) I have been doing a bunch of writing for this story at work. I then come home and add more writing on the computer, after I've transfered the handwritten parts. Usually the handwritten stuff gets a bit augmented as I type it up -- I can't keep up with my thoughts via pen, whereas I can generally keep up with myself via typing, so I add in the little tidbits I know I left out. Sometimes, though, I go off on entirely different tangents. This section, for example, had only two handwritten paragraphs between Morgalen's statement that people will always fight and Riam's abrupt change of subject back to binding. You will note that there is a LOT MORE between those dialogue passages now.

5) 1,650 words today, 12,825 total.

( Ashes, part 7 )

1) Oh, the hell with it; I don't feel like writing today. I am going to go drink a glass of hard cider, read Nalini Singh's latest Psy-Changeling paranormal romance novel, and cheerfully turn my brain off for an hour or so until I go to bed.

2) Morgalen's story about Zerlon and the discovery of binding is more or less true, allowing for the omission of quite a lot of details.

3) 800 words today, 9,325 total.

( Ashes, part 5 )

1) Okay, so basically I lost Friday and Saturday to a combination of my mom visiting, my computer pitching screaming fits -- i.e., crashing a lot and refusing to restart properly -- and an incipient cold tipping over the edge into an actual cold (which, yes, means I am a bit stoned on NyQuil at the moment). Therefore, this is the sum total of my progress on both days and I am going back to bed, word count targets be damned.

2) 1,250 words today, 6,800 total.

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Mom's visit went fairly well. I got off work shortly after 5pm on Friday, whereupon I walked home, finished tidying up a bit, and vacuumed my floors. Mom arrived shortly after 6pm, brought in some stuff, and fed and walked her dog. Then we went out to dinner at the East Shore Cafe, which was oddly underpatronized for a Friday night. Mom had penne pasta with chicken, bacon, and mushrooms in alfredo sauce. I had salmon with spinach and vegetables in wasabi sauce, plus mashed potatoes on the side. Both dishes were lovely.

Mom slept in my computer room on my inflatable air mattress. Today we got up between 7 and 8am, had breakfast at Friendly's, and went grocery shopping (I took shameless advantage to buy several heavy items that I usually ration out one or two per trip, because I only have so much arm strength). Then we went to the Farmer's Market, followed by a trip to GreenStar and lunch at New Delhi Diamond, the Indian restaurant kittycorner from the public library. Then we drove up the west side of the lake to Bellweather Cidery and Hosmer Winery, where we bought some alcoholic beverages. (We also bought some wine at the Farmer's Market, since we plan to do a blind tasting of three Rieslings at Thanksgiving; that has been fun in the past.)

We bought ice cream at Cayuga Creamery on our way back to Ithaca -- Mom had rum raisin and I had pistachio. They're way too far out of the way to visit on a whim, but as part of a vineyard trip? I definitely recommend them.

Mom left around 4pm and reached NJ safely. I, meanwhile, took a nap, and am now about to return to bed after dinner and a successful transcription of my handwritten NaNo progress.

That is all.

( Ashes, part 3 )

1) I really need to do research on trees and flowers and other plants of Africa, India, and South America, because man, my botanical knowledge is both terrifyingly limited and also restricted like whoa to the Midwest and Northeast of the USA, and that is just boring, boring, boring. So I will be faking my way through here. Please bear with me.

2) Sular's basically a plot device. Does that show, or is she coming off like a real person?

3) I still fail at physical description. *headdesk*

4) Are my metaphysics at all clear and/or convincing, or am I making a muddle of things? Any feedback would be very welcome!

5) 1,600 words today, 4,200 total.

( Ashes, part 1 )

And that's enough for today.

A few notes:

1) I have no idea what the effective range of a heliograph is, nor precisely how one shapes the flashes of light, but I needed some form of non-electrical distance communication, and I happen to think fire and mirrors are cool. I may change that in December, when I do some proper research.

2) Funny how making a more detailed outline and doing some slightly less glancing world-building has stretched this introductory section out to over twice the length of my first proper attempt at this story. I promise Morgalen will appear without too much more delay.

3) So, Zalir. She did not exist at all in any sketch of this story I wrote prior to that first attempt in March, whereupon she appeared as a throwaway secondary character. A while later, it occurred to me that it would be really dumb for Riam and Morgalen to go off into the tainted lands and the Great Waste on their own. Plus there is no way Riam's sister would let him do that. So I thought, well, what if a guard goes along? And lucky me, I already have one here and named!

Then, of course, I had to figure out who Zalir was and what to do with her, the upshot of which is that she became a third main character, helpfully plugged a couple other plot holes along the way, and is also just a lot of fun (for me, anyway). Plus it means I have a questing party of two women and one man, of whom the man is the one who's always going to play the bleeding-heart compassionate role, in contrast to Zalir's practicality and Morgalen's coldness.

4) Man, I suck at physical description. You cannot tell from this section what anyone looks like, nor what the layout of the compound is, nor much about the geography and climate of Zerlon. One thing I usually do on second drafts is go through and try to insert sensory details to keep my stories from feeling like they occur in front of blank white screens, enacted by faceless manikins. But that takes time, and is more editing than writing, so you're going to have to suffer through my unfiltered blind spots for a month.

5) 1,825 words so far!

After much waffling back and forth (between "but I want to!" and "but I have so much other stuff I ought to be doing instead!") I have decided to attempt NaNo again this year. This time, I come armed with character sketches, proper world-buildng, and, most importantly, an outline. Thus armed, it is even possible I may make 30,000 words this year!

(I don't really hope to win. I know myself, and I am a deeply lazy and distractible person. But I think a thousand words a day should be doable.)

I will be attempting to write "Ashes," my original postapocalyptic fantasy epic thingy. It will not start exactly the same way as the excerpt currently available via my fiction directory; consider that a rough draft to the rough draft. But it's basically the same story and the same cast (albeit somewhat expanded, as I outlined and realized I needed people to make various incidents work).

Two hundred years ago, a handful of researchers got a little too ambitious with a magical experiment and visited the equivalent of nuclear holocaust on their world. Generations later, the survivors have settled into a tenuous equilibrium, but that cannot last forever, as the catastrophe is still in glacial process. Now a magician, a binder, and a swordswoman set off through the Great Waste on a quest to save their world. But the magician has hidden motives, her companions have secrets of their own, and there is no guarantee that their solution may not simply make the crisis worse.

...I think my back cover summary skills need work, but whatever; it gets the point across.

Anyway, in the interest of self-motivation, I would like to post each day's progress as I go. My questions to you are:

A) Would you be interested in reading said progress (including annoyed insterstitial author's notes, most likely), and if so,

B) Should I create a new NaNo journal or just hijack this one for a month?

All thoughts appreciated!

---------------

In completely unrelated news, JM, PM, MS, and I have decided to do themed costumes for Halloween, since we're the four people staffing the smoke shop on Sunday. We are going for the classic pirates-vs.-ninjas theme. :-) JM and MS will be pirates, while PM and I will be ninjas.

Tomorrow I will stop by the costume shop in the mall en route to the grocery store and see about finding some cheap plastic knives, shuriken, or what-have-you. I already have all-black clothes and a black scarf (though I may want a facemask, should I find a cheap and lightweight one), and the rest is basically attitude and remembering to take off my rings and not wear earrings, since jewelry is dangerous in a fight. :-D